Judy Garvey, a soft-spoken, middle-aged woman who lives in Blue Hill, got her first disturbing letter about Valdez soon after November 19. It came from Jeff Cookson, who also was celled in Valdez's pod. Cookson told her Valdez had been taken to the dreaded 132-cell supermax, the Special Management Unit or SMU, because of a "bogus charge" that he hadn't gone to his cell when ordered. Cookson said Valdez's "dialysis tubes" had been ripped out of him and he had "bled all over the place."

Cookson added urgently: "He needs someone to come to the prison asap to check his injuries out" before he "dies like an inmate a few months ago." Cookson was referring to Sheldon Weinstein, a 64-year-old, wheelchair-bound sex offender who had died the previous April because — as his widow has charged in a wrongful-death lawsuit against prison officials — of callous and insufficient care following a beating by a group of inmates who pick on sex offenders.

Garvey immediately relayed Cookson's concerns to Corrections commissioner Martin Magnusson, his deputy Denise Lord, the legislature's Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA), and the Disability Rights Center, a federally funded nonprofit. Corrections later told Garvey her concerns were "without merit," OPEGA's director was away from her office for a week but later said she couldn't have done anything anyway, and Garvey said Disability Rights took the information over the phone "but never responded." So help did not arrive for Valdez. On November 27, eight days after he had been thrown in the supermax, he died. Garvey learned of his death in another disturbing letter from Cookson.

Garvey, upset, then contacted several newspaper reporters, Corrections officials once again, and Governor John Baldacci and Attorney General Janet Mills (neither of whom replied, she said). Deputy commissioner Lord told the Bangor Daily News that Valdez had expired from "medical causes in the hospital." Lord said no investigation of Valdez's death would take place, prison personnel had acted appropriately with him, and no more information would be released on him. She told the Phoenix that Cookson would not be allowed to be interviewed.

In his second letter, the one telling about Valdez's death, Cookson wrote Garvey that 15 to 20 inmates "would like to be Victor's voice and tell about the abuse we witnessed," adding, "I knew they were gonna kill that man like I expressed in my letter to you." If a medical examiner looked at Valdez's body, Cookson said, "I believe that it will show physical abuse that contributed to his death."

But no state medical examiner looked at Valdez's body, despite a prison protocol requiring the prison to notify the state police to see if they wished to investigate a prisoner's death. The medical examiner's office, part of the attorney general's office, works hand in glove with the state police. The medical examiner's office assistant told the Phoenix that Valdez's death "didn't meet our criteria" because he was "sick enough" to have died from natural causes. In such a case, a prison physician would sign the death certificate, she said. But who signed it and the cause of death listed is information unavailable to the press and general public, according to the state's Office of Vital Records.

AG exonerates guards Critics of the state's prison system will press for an independent investigation after expressing dismay with the attorney general's long-delayed conclusion October 28 that Maine State Prison inmate Victor Valdez died last November from "a natural death."

Time for law to end torture In a collaborative effort between human-rights activists and incarcerated Mainers, a bill to end the use and abuse of solitary confinement has been drafted and will be submitted to legislators soon.

Prison ‘troublemaker’ confronts racism, medical abuse Vacillating between grit and despair — between aggressive lawsuits and suicide attempts — Deane Brown, the prisoner who in 2005 blew the whistle on the torture of mentally ill inmates at the Maine State Prison’s solitary-confinement “Supermax” unit, is struggling against prison conditions in Maryland, where he was exiled by the Baldacci administration.

A mysterious new inmate death Despite a scandal earlier this year over a prisoner death, state corrections officials won’t allow the Phoenix to interview a Maine State Prison inmate who has claimed in letters that prison staff abused an ailing prisoner, Victor Valdez, before Valdez died in late November.

Corrections disobeys another federal court order For decades, as it has with other court orders, the Maine Department of Corrections has apparently been breaching a 1973 federal court’s decree that forbids disciplinary solitary confinement at the Maine State Prison beyond 10 days for minor offenses, or 30 days for major ones.

Screams from solitary The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.

Are doctors complicit in prison torture? In the past few years an outcry has arisen over the involvement of military and CIA medical professionals and psychologists in torture. Some critics have even suggested criminal prosecution of the medical staff involved or, at least, revocation of their professional licenses.

TB worry at Maine State Prison "Several individuals" at the Maine State Prison in Warren have tested positive for tuberculosis, but "there are no confirmed active cases," says Denise Lord, deputy Maine Corrections commissioner.

Former inmate, activist now free to speak out Last year, when Ray Luc Levasseur was invited to speak on the University of Massachusetts — Amherst campus to commemorate the anniversary of a federal sedition trial held in Springfield, the speech prompted vehement protests from police groups and state officials.

SUBVERSIVE SUMMER | June 18, 2014 Prisons, pot festivals, and Orgonon: Here are some different views of summertime Maine — seen through my personal political lens.

LEFT-RIGHT CONVERGENCE - REALLY? | June 06, 2014 “Unstoppable: A Gathering on Left-Right Convergence,” sponsored by consumer advocate Ralph Nader, featured 26 prominent liberal and conservative leaders discussing issues on which they shared positions. One was the minimum wage.

STATE OF POLARIZATION | April 30, 2014 As the campaign season begins, leading the charge on one side is a rural- and northern-Maine-based Trickle-Down Tea Party governor who sees government’s chief role as helping the rich (which he says indirectly helps working people), while he vetoes every bill in sight directly helping the poor and the struggling middle class, including Medicaid expansion, the issue that most occupied the Legislature this year and last.

MICHAEL JAMES SENT BACK TO PRISON | April 16, 2014 The hearing’s topic was whether James’s “antisocial personality disorder” was enough of a mental disease to keep him from being sent to prison.